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Did you know the building code forces people to connect a new house to the gas network? The question is why? Getting a house connected to the gas network costs $2,000 + additional plumbing and that’s before you’ve bought any (always inefficient) gas appliances. This is great for gas fitters but what about home owners. What if you want all your services to be electric and you want to power those services with your roof-top solar system or solar + batteries in the future?

If you live in a remote area of Victoria the government will subsidies your off-grid fuel needs ...and help out their mates in the fossil fuel industry. However they won't help you out if you want to have an all electric home powered by solar and batteries. The question is why not? It is a superior option, so why doesn't it receive the same subsidy.

Tesla's merger with Solarcity has now gone through and this will mean big solar on houses. And when they mean big they mean upto 8 or 10 times what is being installed today. From add on systems that are commonplace now Tesla in the new year will be offering solar tiling which covers the entire roof from ridge-lines to gutters, which would provide capacities in the range 20 - 40kW.

Mazda has announced that they will join rivals in the motor industry in supplying an all electric vehicle platform in 2019.

Methven – the global designer and manufacturer of premium showers and tapware – is celebrating yet another prestigious award win after its Kiri Satinjet Ultra Low Flow Shower won a “green” medal in the Green Good Design Awards from The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design, the largest and oldest awards for contemporary design in the world.

Let’s face it showers wash a lot of heat energy and water down the drain and there are an awful lot of them out there. Therefore making showers more efficient could really make a big difference to world energy and water use and that is just what might happen.

Are you contemplating buying an evaporative cooler this summer – well, my advice is don’t because these deliver terribly poor performing and inefficient cooling and they’re expensive to uninstall.

Evaporative cooling is primitive, outdated and has been superseded by advances in modern, fast and efficient reverse cycle air-conditioning which is based on a variation of the same technology that runs our kitchen fridge, reliably keeping our food from spoiling day in and day out.